Three days after liftoff I was watching a movie, Desire cuddled in my arm. God, I liked this woman. She was like a female me, only refined, she'd went to college.
Of course, the tablet had to ruin the mood, damn it. I had to go to the commons area.
Right now the commons area was a bar and the robots summoned me because there was a damned bar fight.
I like having company but I hate being a babysitter.
Tables were overturned, two women were fistfighting so I tasered and handcuffed both of the dumbasses. "OK," I said, "Who are you girls and what's this about?"
"I'm Billie and that bitch called me a cunt so I hit her," the blonde with the black eye said.
"I'm Sparkle," the other one said. "And I was just defending myself from that cunt."
I sighed. "Look, bitches, there ain't gonna be no violence on my boat, get it? Billie, you're confined to quarters, and that means the door's locked, for twenty four hours. It happens again and you're locked up for the rest of the trip. Got it? That shit don't happen on my boat.
"Sparkle, you get two hours and you better stay out of trouble." I escorted them to their quarters and removed their handcuffs, locked the doors and returned to Desire.
If I'd gone to college maybe I'd known about drops.
As I was going back to Desire's, Tammy walked up. Tammy, my sole passenger. "Trouble?" She asked.
"Nope, just a couple of pissed off whores," I said. Yeah, I held this woman in contempt. A dropper whore was... well, you don't want to know one. Believe me.
"That's what happens when they don't get their drops." she said.
"Huh?" I hadn't known whores or droppers. But I knew I didn't want to.
"Droppers get violent when they don't get their drops."
"You?"
"Best not fuck with me, asshole."
Shit, no wonder the company gave me a raise. Droppers and no drops.
I was in trouble.
Or maybe not. It was a month before another such incident occurred, and was quickly quelled; I didn't have to ground the kids this time.
When I say "babysitter" I'm not kidding. These fully grown women acted like spoiled children. It's like they weren't raised right, I don't know.
Hey, can I go to the bathroom? Thanks.
OK, where was I? Oh, yeah, drops.
I knew those damned things were addictive, but I didn't know that withdrawal from them caused violence. And, it seemed, every time. I was in trouble and didn't know it.

To tell you the truth the rest of the story is still hazy to me, but there will be some surprises. Especially pertaining to Destiny and Tammy.

I don't know if there will be fatalities, but as was mentioned, withdrawal of the drug causes violence. Mutiny is rolling around in the back of my mind... but I like happy endings (or at worst which may be the case here, semi-sweet). I'm pretty sure they'll make it to Mars, but I honestly don't know. I just start typing and let my subconscious do the work. But I want

The part that really has me laughing is the 'I didn't go to college' bit in explaining how he somehow doesn't get it (but he does). But his experience as 'Captain' I'm sure has more than prepared him for this trip. I'm also curious about the incident that drew the CEO's attention - how it happened. We know that the robots pretty much do the work now, maybe going into why robots instead of people (besides the economics of it) running the ship can be explored?

Well, his experience as bus driver and babysitter didn't prepare him for sociopathic whores. I'm not sure if I'll go into what made the CEO take notice except he saved the corporation money (actually I don't know myself). But maybe I should... thanks, that may be a pivotal point.

I do have some surprises in store, don't want to spoil it. It's about 1/5th away from novel length and I want this one to be a little bigger than Nobots. But I'm mostly "flying by the seat of my pants" like the last book.